Tag: architecture

San Francisco is… Coit Tower & The Views

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So what if the line went round and round, forming a complete circle at the base of the tower. There was so much to see during the hour we waited to reach the lift that, for once, I didn’t feel the pain. For the entire ground floor is adorned with floor to ceiling murals painted in 1934 by a group of artists employed by the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

They depict life in California during the Depression, with emphasis on the theme of industry and commerce and distinctive touches of leftist political ideas, clearly evident; like on Bernard Zakheim’s “Library” which depicts fellow artist John Langley Howard reaching for a copy of Karl Marx’s ”Das Kapital” (spelled here ”Das Capital”).  Touches one is familiar with in Europe, but rather unusual in the States. Perhaps it is true, after all, San Francisco may well be a very European city.

The Tower & details the Murals Industries of California
Ralph Stackpole

Industries of California
Ralph Stackpole

Newsgathering
Suzanne Scheuer

Library
Bernard B. Zakheim

City Life
Victor Arnautoff

City Life
Victor Arnautoff

Scientist-Inventor
Mallette Harold Dean

City Life
Victor Arnautoff

City Life
Victor Arnautoff

Banking and Law
George Harris

California
Maxine Albro

The (360°) views

You can buy tickets on-line in advance and skip the lines. But where is the fun in that?

Coit Tower

July 5th, 2017

San Francisco is… apparently very European

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Beautiful, romantic, stunning, cool, surprising… people used many different adjectives to describe the city when I asked around, ahead of the trip. But the one remark on -almost- everyone’s lips was that San Francisco is ”the most European of all Californian cities”. How true was that?

After only one day, my European antennae were tickled by some of the Pacific Heights mansions, the Italian trams and vintage cable cars, the shifts in temperature and clouds. But these were just a few highlights, my first impressions. What is San Francisco really like?

A walk Downtown and the adjacent, city-within-a-city, Chinatown will help us find out. By the way, the Chinese population of San Francisco represents the single largest ethnic group with 21,4% of the population, concentrated mostly in Chinatown (source). One of the many faces of San Francisco, the least ”European” one of all.   July 5th, 2017

San Francisco is… three weddings in the City Hall

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And that’s only the ones we witnessed during the time we spend in the City Hall – just over an hour. Looking at the vast open space of the central rotunda with the grand staircase, I’m not surprised they are on a tight schedule. Who wouldn’t want to get married under this magnificent dome! Marilyn Monroe and Joe Di Maggio did it in 1954. A number of gay couples were finally able to wed in 2004 when Gavin Newsom, then mayor of the city, made history by issuing same sex marriage licences. On the day we visited, the rotunda echoed with cheers. It was a happy day. 

Completely destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1906, reconstruction began in 1913 and the new building was ready in 1915, in good time for the World’s Fair of the same year. Designed by architect Arthur Brown, Jr. in the Beaux-Arts style, it suffered severe damages yet again, when struck by another earthquake in 1989. Repairs and reinforcements were completed ten years later, making the building earthquake proof. I’m just glad we didn’t have to find out how resistant the structure has become.

The City Hall

July 5th, 2017

San Francisco is… Bullitt!

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We watched Bullitt in preparation of the trip, just a few days before departure, so I was very excited to have spotted one of the filming locations very close to Alamo Square where we were staying. A brief 35 minute walk via Divisadero St. and its rather wonderful mansions, or 1.6 miles according to my web map.  What could be easier? Well, walking 35 minutes uptown hilly Manhattan, that’s what. For I still had to get to grips with the steepest streets I had ever encountered in a city, the very same that sent the cars flying in ”one of the most exciting car chases in film history” (skip to 3:15 and buckle up).

We did make it, with a few extra huffs and puffs, to the gorgeous mansion atop the hill, where police detective Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) meets District Attorney Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) at a reception at Chalmer’s residence.

A break for some extra cheesy pizza to treat ourselves, because what comes up must come down… and then all the way up again.

 Walking towards the mansion in the corner of Divisadero St. & Vallejo St., down to Lombard St. at Cow Hollow for a pizza and then back to Alamo Square Park to watch the 4th of July fireworks.

July 4th, 2017

San Francisco is… postcard-perfect

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First port of call was Alamo Square with its incredibly charming, perfectly aligned pastel Painted Ladies; so perfectly pastel and aligned, I thought I had walked into a Wes Anderson film. Beyond them, San Francisco Downtown was beckoning. Excited as we were to discover it, it would have to wait because the Painted Ladies were only the start. For street after street, mansion after mansion, this entire district of San Francisco seemed to be a giant postcard.

It was a cool day with low clouds coming up from the East. Partly cloudy and grey but not dull at all. My eyes had yet to adjust to the light – so much different than in New York: similarly bright, but the dominant hues were blue, instead of the orange-yellow ones my eyes have been accustomed to. And, instead of being reflected on glass buildings, here the light was generously diffused, making objects seem sharper, colours brighter and the grass greener. Even on a cloudy day.

I would also have to adjust to the temperature, surprisingly cool – and I mean sweater and a light jacket cool – even in July. One tends to dream of sunshine and hot days on the beach when thinking of California, not this cool-summer-continental, one has learned to expect in Northern Europe.  

Walking from Alamo Square to the Pacific Heights, via Divisadero St. and its environs

July 4th, 2017

Cityscapes || Dancing in the streets

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1/Two Bridges
Sculpture: “5 in 1”, 1973-74, Tony Rosenthal. On permanent display at One Police Plaza, it consists of five interlocking discs which represent the interconnectedness of the City’s Five Boroughs, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island.

2-3-4-5-6/Financial district
Sculpture: ”Untitled, (Two Dancing Figures)”, 1989, Keith Haring. On display in 17 State St.

July 1st, 2017

Spotted: The ‘real’ Daily Planet

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We were on our way back from a lunch break when my co-worker, who had been in the City much longer than I, pulled me aside:

”Wait, have you seen this?” ”C’mon, you’ll love it!”

In, he dragged me, through a revolving door and before I knew it I was facing a giant revolving globe amidst a stunning art deco interior with just a touch of brass, as if Jules Verne had walked by and left his mark, and I could hardly contain my excitement. For the lobby we had walked into belongs to The Daily News Building, the iconic skyscraper built in 1929–1930 to become the headquarters of the New York Daily News paper, up until the mid 1990s. But it gets better: this, as I discovered by looking at the photographs on the wall, was the very building that served as the offices of the ”Daily Planet”, the newspaper where none other than Clark Kent and Lois Lane, played by Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, worked as reporters in the 1978 Superman and its 1980 sequel.

I am still in awe!

Today, the New York Daily News has moved on, but the building is still home to its broadcast subsidiary, WPIX.

The News Building was designed by architects Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, in the Art Deco style. Other Art Deco designs by the same architects include: the American Radiator Building, Rockefeller Center (Hood) and McGraw-Hill Building (Hood).

The News Building
42nd St., between 2nd & 3rd Avenues

June 22nd, 2017